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Hot and Bothered, Holler Style

There's nothing like walking in the door after a long day at the office to find it ten degrees warmer inside, with the supposed air conditioning running.

Like the ac at work, we have to call someone to repair our central air unit every summer and winter. This time, it lead to a somewhat loud disagreement between Ma and I, but more on that later.

Everytime someone comes out, it's anywhere from $200 to $400. I'm pretty sure I've spent more on repairs in the past few years than it would cost me to replace the whole stinking thing. I know what the problem is with the air conditioning, but Ma refuses to listen, because she'd rather keep pouring money in to crap than admit defeat.

See.. about two years after we moved in to the trailer, Ma hired Dubya, our meddling neighbor across the road, to come over with his baby backhoe to rip down the rock wall and little stone can house my great grandfather built (sending both the Amazon and I into hysterics) and move some of the dirt from the bank to create more yard.

Okay, I know this sounds confusing.. it's a rural thing.. moving sides of hills to make more yard.

Anywho, the Amazon and I were too late to save the rock wall and the front of the can house, but we managed to save three sides. In the process of moving all the dirt, Dubya, in his infinite wisdom, crammed about a quarter acre of yard into the front of our central air unit. I did the best I could to dig it out, but the grilly bits are damaged beyond repair and the air intake is terminally borked.

"Terminally borked" is a technical term, for those of you who were wondering.

The result of Dubya and Ma's little escapade is an inability to keep a motor in the central air / ac unit for more than a year without it burning up. The last one cost me $400.

So last night as the Amazon sat by an open window in nothing but a bra and her Spongebob pajama bottoms, alternately tapping away on her laptop keyboard and fanning herself with everything she could grab, I sat on the couch, my mumu hiked up to my nether regions, my hair wadded up in a teeny tiny pony tail (a look I like to call "Summer Fat Girl,") brushing away the remaining tears of the full-fledged, frustration driven, southern-fried, hissified fit I was slowly coming out of.

I mean chit people.. the cat, the heat, the job threats and now the ac.. I was due for one.

After I went through about a half box of Kleenex.. because a true full-fledged, southern-fried, hissified fit is always a snot churner.. I decided that repair was futile and if I could just get through tomorrow (today) I'd go after work and buy a window unit.

Ma, of course, begged to differ.

"That man that came last time don't charge that much. I'm calling him tomorrow. A window unit isn't going to cool the whole house," she argued.

"Well, the central air isn't cooling a damned thing at the moment and quite frankly, I'm tired of worrying about it everytime the seasons change. I'm going to Lowe's tomorrow after work."

She kept yammerin' on.. blah blah blah.. even tapping into my current "all my critters are keeling over" paranoia by pointing out that the midget dog was breathing awfully hard and was probably going to die from the heat, so she'd better call someone tomorrow. I just tuned her out.

Just for the record, Ma's brand of crazy isn't due to her age. She's only 65. She's been wonky taters for at least thirty years.

Anywho, I can be sure that one of two things will happen. Either I'll get a phone call this afternoon informing me that the guy is there to fix the central air, he's done and I need to run home and pay him.. or I'll go get a window unit tonight, install it in the kitchen and listen to Ma go on for at least a week about how she's going to faint from the heat without central air.

I know what you're thinking.. if I get that phone call, I should just refuse to pay him and stand my ground. In a perfect world where I had titanium cajones, that might be a possibility. The problem with that plan of action is that if I refuse to pay, Ma will just pay him out of her meager little disability check. Then, when they send a cut off notice for the electricity or the phone (including internet.. omg the horror!) she'll just tell me she doesn't have the money and I'll either have to pay them or sit in the dark.

This is how we play the game.

So here I sit... wondering what I'll find when I go home for lunch.. seriously considering ordering out just to avoid the scene.

Craziness.

Anywho.. on a side note I want to let ya'll know how much I appreciate your kind comments on yesterday's post. I don't mean to sound all "poor me" but I don't have anyone I can honestly talk to here. Having this outlet has been a sanity saver. So.. thank you, all of you.

I'd better go get my backside in motion and make some money for the bossman. It's almost Friday.. and I'm off Monday.